JezzBall Classic

JezzBall Classic

This game was created to be just like how the original JezzBall was 25 years ago! The graphics, the sound, the scoring, the physics, the tempo... they are all the same as they were in the original!

Of course there are improvements as well; for example there's a much higher frame rate and fixed glitches. Plus a lot of bonus stuff such as alternative game modes and challenges.

If you're more interested in the gameplay than the original graphics there are options to enable a more modern look.

Gameplay

In JezzBall there are a number of Jezz atoms that bounces around. Your task is to build walls that contain them in as small space as possible. When over 75% of the capture chamber has been turned into wall the current level is completed and you move on to the next where another Jezz atom is added into play.

To build walls you deploy a wallbuilder by left-clicking in the chamber. Right-clicking determines the direction. The wallbuilder has two ends that travel from the origin of your click, in the opposite directions from each other. A wall is constructed from the center in two pieces, if a pending wall-half is hit by a Jezz atom before it has reached an already existing wall it is destroyed and you lose a life. But it's still possible that the other half of the wall succeeds.

Earn large construction bonuses at the end of each level by reaching over 80% area cleared on your last deployment. Get an even larger bonus by reaching over 90% area cleared! Time and lives remaining also adds to the end-of-level bonus so make your clicks count.

Features

The original JezzBall experience! Into the very last detail; if you came looking for the JezzBall you remember you will not be disappointed!

Four profiles (one reserved for guests) with their configurations stored separately.

700 beautiful background images (real life photos). Go to the "Graphics" config screen to enable it. Will place a random image into the black walls each level.

8 music tracks of classic MIDI tunes you'll probably remember! All recorded using SoundBlaster 16. You can set up to 24 music audio events if you want to.

60 fully customizable SFX audio events - change which sample(s) to play or change individual volumes. A pool of 300 sounds are available from various old games.

Automatic saving of all games in progress. Stop and continue whenever you want to!

Local high score lists. In the Hall of Fame your name will last forever and on the three other lists you will see the daily, weekly and monthly high scores.

Level records. All your best statistics are saved on each and every level you complete. Profile records are comparable.

Smart and very customizable controls. If you have a touchscreen you can play using your fingers.

83 mods that once activated changes how the game is played! Use none or pick one/several at the same time in any order. High scores and level records are stored separately for each combination. Some mods will just change the amount of time/lives you have while other will drastically change gameplay (allow you to use two wallbuilders at the same time for example).

22 preset mod-combinations are provided in addition to the original JezzBall experience to give you variation.

100 rooms that will stimulate your intellect as well as your ability to time your deployments! Can you solve them?

There are also missions available to inspire you to break your personal bests. Completing them all is an achievement!

If you have Java installed you can run an included utilities program that will help you add new background images or audio samples to the game. Note: The utils aren't included in the demo.

Meet the gang

Red and Blue Wallbuilder Ends
These will seal off the capture chamber with walls, one cell at a time. They are usually deployed as a pair and will can withstand being hit by an atom when fortified.

Yellow and Green Wallbuilder Ends
If the 2WA mod is in use you'll be able to deploy four wallbuilder ends at a time. These two are put into action if red and blue has already been deployed.

Red-White Atom
The classic Jezz atom! This baby's worth a lot of galactic credits back on Earth. Yields the most energy when tightly confined.

Blue-White Atom
Kind of the negative version of a Jezz atom. Usually doesn't like to mix with its Red-White counterpart.

Medkit Atom
Capture this atom in its own area to gain a life! It appears after you've cleared 25% of the level's required area and disappears when you've only got 25% to go.

Bonus Atom
Capture this atom to gain a bonus between 10k-20k points! How much you get depends on how long it took for you to capture it.

Freeze Atom
This purple atom appears when a certain amount of cells gets filled with wall. Capture it to freeze atom movement! While frozen the medkit and bonus atoms doubles in value!

General Atom
If this atom find itself alone in an area it will teleport 75% of the other atoms into its own area.

Missile Atom
Expect homing missiles to be launched at your wallbuilder ends whenever you deploy in the same area as this atom. Upon impact the hit end will be stunned for a second, leaving it vulnerable to incoming atoms.

Dash Atom
An aggressive atom that will dash towards pending walls in order to destroy them. After a short while it will instantly leap into it!

Adrenaline Atom
Moves twice as fast as regular atoms. Be careful about capturing it into its own area - it will slow down but in turn speed up all other atoms!

Presets

The original JezzBall experience(default)
You'll recognize this game mode all the way back from 1992.

The casual
A fast-moving wallbuilder and more atoms per level! Perfect for a nice casual game. But be careful with your deployments since the wallbuilder ends aren't fortified.

The arcade
You only have 20 lives and you don't receive new ones. The bonus atom is in play, use it to increase your score to new heights!

The arcadium
You start with 15 lives and don't receive new ones each level, but luckily you have the opportunity to capture a medkit atom to delay the inevitable. The bonus atom is also in play as well as the freeze atom. Stop time to double the effects of the bonus and medkit atoms! Play your cards right and you'll go far.

The prison
Trap each Jezz atom in its own area. Your biggest worry here is not to get two atoms stuck next to each other so that you are unable to separate them.

The luxury prison
Trap each Jezz atom in its own area, just watch out so you don't make it too small! If you do the imprisoned atom will escape to a larger nearby space. Use the freeze atom to quickly trap the regular atoms and reach 50% area cleared before anyone can have a chance to escape.

The shepherd
Use your fast wallbuilder-dogs to separate the red and blue sheeps into different groups. Be quick about it because time is sparse! And be careful so that your dogs doesn't run into a sheep, you can't afford to make many mistakes since you only have 4 of them each level.

The divisor
Separate the red and blue Jezz atoms from each other and put each atom into its own space. Your pending walls are shielded but don't lose your focus or you will put yourself in a situation where the level can't be completed!

The adventure
Help the atoms find their kin in these randomly generated labyrinths. The atoms must see all other atoms of the same color and blue and red line-of-sight must not cross. Lives are extra valuable towards the end bonus.

The challenge
Reduced time and you only have four lives each level. How far will your nerves allow you to go?

The flying T-rex
Your pending walls are shielded to withstand one hit. You only have a single life on each level though so make sure a pending wall is not hit twice! Also take extra note of the unprotected wallbuilder ends. You can't lose from getting 0 time so only deploy when you are sure it's safe.

The planner
The good news is that you don't lose lives when a wall under construction is being destroyed. The bad news is that you only have a certain number of walls to build with and the waillbuilder ends aren't fortified.

The master builder
To survive you must master the art of building with only one wallbuilder end. Time your construction well because you have very few chances. Especially since your last deployment doesn't count - as soon as you reach 0 lives it's over.

The quick
All that matters here is speed if you want to get good bonuses. Finish the levels as fast as you possibly can! Just don't forget to keep your lives over 0.

The panic
More lives and less percentage to cover. However, the time you have is very low so you best act fast! Very fast.

The artistDraw the walls instead of building them the normal way. Start dragging next to an already existing wall and release next to another already existing wall. Watch out since your wallbuilder ends aren't fortified and you have halved amount of lives. Avoid straight walls to gain up to 9999 bonus points per draw!

The workerTake control of the red wallbuilder end and build walls directly instead of building them the normal way. Decide which way the wallbuilder goes by swiping across the screen (or by using the arrow keys on PC). Catch the medkit atom to gain lives and thereby increase the end-level bonus.

The war
The play area has turned into a militarized zone and you're in charge. Think twice about your deployments since the missile atom will try to stun your wallbuilder ends. Use the general atom to reposition troops where they won't get in the way. Remember to use your second wallbuilder.

The inferno
Lava has somehow gotten into the capture chamber. The Jezz atoms doesn't seem to be affected but it will destroy any wallbuilder end. Plan your deployments carefully to avoid disaster. To your help you have the REA mod, which makes it a lot easier to deploy only one wallbuilder end at a time.

The haste spell
Everything moves at twice the normal speed! You start with one life more than the number of atoms. After a few levels it will be the other way around.

The appender
Every level has a pre-built wall piece in it to aid you but in turn two new atoms are added into the chamber instead of one.

The bear cave
You're stuck in a cave filled with angry bears! The only way out is to trap them. Be mindful of papa bear since he will dash at pending walls. Your wallbuilder ends aren't fortified so keep your distance.

The caretakers
These Jezz atoms are tending to an atom with special needs. It is quite eccentric unless isolated, which seems to calm it down. Although that makes its caretakers run around like crazy, searching...

To change between presets you press your profilename to the right of the "New Game" button on the main menu.

JezzBall stands its ground as one of the most addicting puzzle games and I promise you will find JezzBall Classic both challenging and enjoyable!

Do you wish to check out the game before you buy it?
There is a demo available! (It's called 'lite' for historical reasons.)

Good luck containing those Jezz atoms!

What's new in version 2.0.0?
+ Now available on PC! Comes with an informative README.TXT
+ Sound! 8 music tracks and 300 noises available for 24+60 audio events
+ Can use custom bg images or sounds on PC (separate utils program created)
+ Better looking scrolling lists (unless disabled in graphics)
+ Added dotted border around the main menu Mod Map button to make presets less hidden
+ 9 new mods (2 are new atoms)
+ 3 new presets: The appender, The bear cave and The caretakers
+ The middle cover from the Cover mod now becomes transparent when finishing a level
+ Improved descriptions for the preset game modes
+ Can now set the deployment flag to always show
+ Changed default of "Show level record of other profiles" to OFF
+ Now using higher anti-alias settings
+ Will now see the background image slightly better upon the end-of-level fill
+ Can now render the game in up to 8 times the original resolution
+ Quicker loading at the start of the game
+ Better looking graphics when the stage is resized
+ Added 200 new background images
+ Doubled the resolution of all background images
+ Better at reflecting changes on the first page of the graphics configuration
+ Quality setting for fade effects
+ More efficient reuse of existing bitmaps in memory
+ Doubled max framerate to 120
+ More accurate internal time measurement
+ Now showing the current level number on the main menu
+ Now able to temporary boost the game speed (less waiting for bounces to finish)
+ Can select what the second finger does: Reposition Flag, Toggle Direction, Boost Speed or Abort Deployment
+ Can select what any physical button on your device does: Toggle Menu, Toggle Direction or Boost Speed
+ The destruction of wallbuilders moving into a Jezz Atom is now delayed to give visual feedback of what's happening
+ Score gained from the Bonus Atom is now reduced if the level speed has not been Fast the whole time
+ The Drawing Walls mod now grants bonus points for more complex wall constructions
+ Can select one of three visual effects for wallbuilder destruction (or keep it as none)
+ Enhanced randomization and loading of background images
+ Removed random chance from the Freeze Atom, it now appears at set amounts of created wall cells
+ Changed (simplified) preset "The arcade" to differentiate it more from "The arcadium"
+ Changed preset "The shepherd" to differentiate it more from "The divisor"
+ Changed preset "The adventure", now have normal number of lives and each life is worth twice as much end bonus
+ The Missile Atom now only launches missiles if a wallbuilder is in the same area as itself
+ A third atom should no longer be able to break free two other atoms that are stuck next to each other
+ Fade effect possible on built wall lines and on failed (destroyed) pending walls
+ The Wallcrawler (WAL mod) now starts at a random location instead of always in the bottom right corner
+ The Wallcrawler (WAL mod) now does a visual "landing" animation at the start of each level
+ The Wallcrawler (WAL mod) now disappears when level is lost due to 0 lives (instead of returning to transparent)
+ Added a "Use Recommended?" button to allow new players to quickly change graphics from the default classic theme
+ Will now highlight the config, mod-map (presets) and HQ buttons until the first time they are pressed
+ Grouping mod: The line-of-sight for red-white and blue-white atoms will be shown as dashed lines when the level ends
+ Exiting a room in the headquarters now returns you to the main menu at once
+ The "Speed is key" mod can now award a much more satisfying maximum end bonus
+ A whole bunch of minor tweaks here and there

There is no installation required, just unzip and start playing! 100% DRM free.

You don't need to create an account here on itch.io in order to buy this game.Actual payment is done on PayPal's site (credit card accepted - no account needed).

Note: Some additional info may be required for tax purposes during purchase, if so you will get a "Billing address" message before being taken to PayPal ("2015 VAT MOSS regulations for EU"). Simply fill out the form and press "continue payment". The info is used to calculate what VAT percentage to add on top of the $4.99 (if you live in USA it will always be 0%).

Also available on

Download demo

Comments

Quick note: I've been told that the game might not start on Windows 10 after a recent update from Microsoft. This can be fixed by renaming the file "JBC.prg" to "JBC.exe" and starting the game with that exe instead of the normal "JezzBall Classic.exe". Sorry for the inconvenience.

BUYER BEWARE! I downloaded Jezzball Classic Lite to evaluate it, and I love the similarity to the original Microsoft 32-bit version. However, Norton Security identified it as malicious with the footprint WS.Reputation.1 and subsequently removed it from my system. And since I don't see any other posts with this problem perhaps it's something new (although Norton reports numerous incidents of removal of this program)? In addition the web domain is in the British Indian Ocean Territory...

I can guarantee 100% that there's nothing fishy in this game and that Norton made a mistake. As they say on their own website WS.Reputation.1 isn't an actual identified threat, it's an AI guess based on analytical data. The main executable launches "JBC.prg", which Norton probably think is suspicious behaviour. Why I made it like that is because otherwise the program's icon was stuck in low resolution, a strange limitation of Adobe AIR at the time I created the game. I can't stress enough that there's nothing malicious with my game, the reason why nobody have reported any problems even though it has been for sale for years is because there aren't any.

I'm sorry but the trouble is over at PayPal, I can't help you out. They were simply unable to process your payment, with no reason given. All I can recommend is that you either contact them or try again later. Thank you for your interest in JezzBall Classic!